The problem I have is that I haven't found a compelling reason to make my own butter since I generally can't taste the difference between freshly made butter and freshly made Land O'Lakes butter (which makes it through the same process, just on a massive scale...thank you Good Eats!). The only time I make my own is when I need beurre aux fines herbes or some variation on that theme.

While I won't deny that there's a certain satisfaction that comes from making things from as scratch as possible, can other people taste a difference?

Ahh this is good stuff, I always wondered how you do this with modern day appliances. I can't count the number of times I've read Little House in the Big Woods and wished that I too could make my own butter.

If whatever product you buy is labeled Ultra Homogenized, you may not be able to make butter with it. Such products typically include gelatin or carageenan to make them whippable but they don't behave like real heavy cream.

My father who owned a tiny dairy was resourceful. He collected the cream and made butter. How? He sterilized our wringer washer ( very old laundry technology) with several bleach washes and boiling water rinses. He poured gallons of cream into the sanitized washtub. He turned on the washer and the centrifuge churned the cream into pounds of yellow butter. We stashed the pounds into the freezer and had fresh butter for three years!

I get fresh raw milk from my in-laws, skim the cream with a ladle and shake it in a Mason jar for about 15 minutes. Must be something like the marble & tupperware method. Does the marble make a difference?

I get fresh raw milk from my in-laws, skim the cream with a ladle and shake it in a Mason jar for about 15 minutes. Must be something like the marble & tupperware method. Does the marble make a difference?

My guess is that the marble helps agitate the cream while you shake it. It might reduce your shaking time - or it might not make a noticable difference (or a bad shake may break the mason jar...)

How has pasturizing affected the taste of butter? Does it make a difference. Also the culture mentioned above versus the old skimming method what has a live culture in it yet? What would I buy in a store? Is the old skimming method produce tastier results? Other butter than Cow butter? What butter is the best salted butter in the stores for taste on breads?

The cr*p they sell at the grocery store isn't usually suitable for making butter. First, they always add carageenan and assorted other things to make it hold together, which don't work well in butter. Second, all the cream I have seen at the store lately is ultrapasteurized and DOESN'T CULTURE. It's dead dead dead.

I managed to find real cream at the farmer's market, and it doesn't have any additives, works well, cultures well, and I can get an entire quart for the same price I was paying for a pint of grocery store "cream."

How has pasturizing affected the taste of butter? Does it make a difference. Also the culture mentioned above versus the old skimming method what has a live culture in it yet? What would I buy in a store? Is the old skimming method produce tastier results? Other butter than Cow butter? What butter is the best salted butter in the stores for taste on breads?

Pasteurization makes some difference in flavor if you're going to culture the butter--raw milk has a slightly different blend of bacteria than an add-your-own culture. UHT milk, as noted above, often won't culture at all. You can buy culture starter at a healthfood store, or you can use PLAIN live-culture yogurt to start the culture (Stonyfield Farm whole-milk is the best commercial yogurt, and it even comes with a nice thick layer of cultured cream on top--yummy).

Lurpak is a very good, although expensive, salted butter (it's in a silver foil wrapper and is usually found with the specialty cheeses). Kerrygold is also good, and expensive. Horizon Organic makes a decent butter (supposedly they also have a cultured butter, but I haven't seen it yet). If you can track down a local farmer who makes butter, it is usually superior to anything in the store.

Two people spoke about "ultra homogenized' cream not working when making butter. Is there any confirmation to this? I wanted to make butter with some school children and I don't want them to shake and shake and end up with??? whatever? What would they end up with?

Two people spoke about "ultra homogenized' cream not working when making butter. Is there any confirmation to this? I wanted to make butter with some school children and I don't want them to shake and shake and end up with??? whatever? What would they end up with?

I believe only one person stated that ultra-homogenized cream would not form butter. I don't know if this is true, but just check the ingredients list on your container of heavy cream to see if it contains anything besides cream. If it does, you probably don't want to be making butter with it any.

The other individuals who mentioned ultra-pasteurized were talking about cultering the cream (growing bacteria) prior to making butter for better flavor. You'll have a tough time doing that with ultra-pasteurized cream unless you introduce your own bacteria colony. However ultra-pasteurized does come together to form butter without any problems.